Teacher of Two

Back to Reality...

Yeah, I knew yesterday was too good to last.  We did manage to get most of our work done today, but it was a struggle.  Spelling/handwriting seemed to be our big pitfall today.  We went over M's spelling words, and she was to write them one time each on a piece of paper.  It took her almost an hour to write 20 words and I could not recognize the majority of them when she was done.  I think I'll have to go back to what I did on Tuesday and have each word already written on a page for her to just copy, that way the correct formation of the letters is on the page for her.  She has a letter chart on the wall right in front of her, but for some reason, it isn't as effective as I would like it to be.

On a more positive note, I was able to get the Leap Pad Jr working today for A.  I took a can of air to it and the cartridges and it works again! Yeah!  A had a good time with that.  I even got the Leap Pad Writing out and let M use it for a while.  So we ended school on a positive note at least.

Tomorrow we are going to a Not-Back-to-School Party.  I debated about whether or not to go because it is from 10:00-1:00, which is our school time.  Then we have gymnastics at 1:30.  So this will mean no actual "work" will get done.  But I decided that since one of my main goals for this year was to find more kids for the girls to play with, that going would be in our best interest.  So tomorrow will be a different kind of school day, but hey, it still counts!

Do parties count?

6:06 PM, Sep. 10, 2007 .. Posted by kcmyworld

I live in a state where almost the only requirment for homeschoolers is that we do 180 days worth of school. So last year, being my first year, I diligently kept a record of the days we did formal instruction. I wasn't comfortable including the 2 parties we had with other homeschooling families in our tally, even though at the parties we did various craft and cooking projects, games and physical activities.

This year, I think I am going to be a lot less rigid on my definition of a school day! I missed one day last week because I needed to get caught up on planning and errands. In public school, the teachers would get to count it as an in-service day. But on the weekend, we attended a museum, seeing an exhibit that specifically fit with our current studies. We read books that deal with our current topics, have soccer and social activities that all help develop the kids as we'd like. So I may not count last Tuesday as a school day, but I will offset it with a weekend day.

Congrats on some good days. Hope it continues for you!

Robin